Introduction

I was looking for an easy and flexible grid filtering mechanism to use with new and old applications. I've found no preexisting solutions that fully satisfy my needs. So, I decided to make my own filtering library. The goals I've tried to reach are:

Easy to integrate: Availability of a "few lines of code" usage to satisfy the needs of rapid integration.

User Friendly: Nice to look, easy to use.

Not code pervasive: Using a DataGridView derivation would constrain people to re-declare their instances. Moreover, this could be in conflict with existing grid derivations.

Flexible: There are never enough filters in the world!

Using the Code

This is for eager people. The promised "few lines of code" are just one. Add the DgvFilterPopup.dll to your references. Write somewhere a line like this:

DgvFilterManager filterManager = new DgvFilterManager(dataGridView1);

That's all. Your grid is now able to filter the column values. Right-click on the column headers to see a popup with different filtering features, based on the clicked column data type.

Note: Your grid must be data-bound to a DataView, DataTable, or a BindingSource resolving to one of these two.

Class Architecture

The three main classes are exposed in the following diagram:

The DgvFilterManager Class

The DgvFilterManager class doesn't provide a user interface. Its work is to coordinate the interaction between the DataGridView and the visual filtering elements. When you assign a DataGridView to a DgvFilterManager, the latter attaches some handlers to respond to right click on column headers and to perform some custom painting on the grid. When the user right clicks a column header, the DgvFilterManager shows a popup near the column. This popup is a control that serves as a host for other controls, one for each column. Only one of these child controls is visible at a time, based on the clicked column. We have one filter host control and many column filter child controls.

The filter host control must be a derivation of the DgvBaseFilterHost class, while filter controls must be derived from the DgvBaseColumnFilter class. These two classes don't provide any user interface themselves.

As a default, the DgvFilterManager uses a standard host implementation, named DgvFilterHost, and depending on each column type and data type, one of the filter standard implementations (see below): DgvTextBoxColumnFilter, DgvCheckBoxColumnFilter, DgvComboBoxColumnFilter, or DgvDateColumnFilter.

When a DataGridView is attached to the manager, the latter performs the following actions:

It creates a filter host that is an instance of the DgvFilterHost class. If you have already provided a filter host, this step is skipped.

It creates a list of DgvBaseColumnFilters, one per column, and initializes each element to a specialization of DgvBaseColumnFilter. If AutoCreateFilters is false, this step is skipped.

You can force a specific column filter type for a certain column, intervening in this process through the ColumnFilterAdding event. You can also intervene, after the auto-creation process, accessing the filter instances through one of the two indexers provided by the manager, and replacing them with user-chosen instances.

The DgvBaseFilterHost Class

The purpose of the filter host control is to show a popup near a right-clicked column and to host child column filter controls. When the popup is shown, only the column filter control related to the right-clicked column is visible. DgvBaseFilterHost is a derivation of UserControl, and provides functionalities to cooperate with DgvFilterManager.

Note: This class is intended as an abstract class. However, declaring it as abstract would generate errors within the designer when designing derived classes.

In your derivation, you have to provide a host area (such as a panel) and override the FilterClientArea to return it. Also, create visual elements for remove filter, remove all filters, apply filter, and use the DgvFilterManager methods ActivateFilter and ActivateAllFilters to make them alive.

The DgvBaseColumnFilter Class

The purpose of a column filter control is to contain visual elements, allowing the end user to construct a filter. When inheriting from it, you can work just like creating any other user control. This class is a derivation of UserControl, and provides functionalities to cooperate with DgvFilterManager.

Note: This class is intended as an abstract class. However, declaring it as abstract would generate errors within the designer when designing derived classes.

You should override OnFilterExpressionBuilding to provide a filter expression construction logic and to set the values of the FilterExpression and FilterCaption properties.

Standard Implementations

The DgvFilterHost Class

This is the standard implementation of DgvBaseFilterHost. This class does nothing special. Most of the logic is in its base class. It just contains visual elements such as buttons and graphics, and a panel acting as the client area for child column filter controls.

The DgvTextBoxColumnFilter Class

This is one of the DgvBaseColumnFilter standard implementations. It's composed of a combobox containing a list of operators and a textbox in which to type the value of the filter. This column filter is used by default with DataGridViewTextBoxColumns, except when the bound data type is DateTime. The list of available operators is different between string types and numeric types.

The DgvTextBoxColumnFilter Class

A standard implementation for the filtering of checkbox columns. The only available operators are the equal and the general null and not null operators.

The DgvDateColumnFilter Class

A standard implementation for the filtering of date columns.

The DgvComboBoxColumnFilter Class

A standard implementation for the filtering of combobox columns. By default, on textbox columns, the filter manager uses DgvTextBoxColumnFilter instances. However, you can force an instance of DgvComboBoxColumnFilter on such columns. In this case, the DgvComboBoxColumnFilter instance automatically creates a distinct list of values from the column data. You should do an explicit call to the RefreshValues() method when the underlying data changes.

Customizing

If "one line usage" is not sufficient for your needs, you can control the process of adding and showing filters in different ways.

Using a DgvComboBoxColumnFilter for Non-Combobox Columns

Use one of the manager indexers to access the filter, and assign it an instance of the DgvComboBoxColumnFilter class.

FilterExpressionBuilding

Using the DgvBaseColumnFilter event, you can customize the filter expression building process. In the following code example, we add new operators and then manage them in the event handler. The FilterExpression and FilterCaption properties will be used by the manager to build the whole filter and to set the column caption.

Subclassing

A more powerful way to customize your filters is through subclassing. You should think of the proposed standard implementations of DgvBaseFilterHost and DgvBaseColumnFilter as just some possible implementations.

Creating Your Own Host

As said above, derive from DgvBaseFilterHost and provide some visual elements. Add a container within your control to host the child filter controls, and return it by an override of the FilterClientArea property. The base class provides the necessary logic to cooperate with the manager, and provides some facilities helping to position the child filter controls and to adjust the host size. Another facility simplifies the creation of transparent skinned hosts, thanks to the method BitmapToRegion I've found in a very nice article by John O'Byrne.

Note: A skinned host must be constrained to a fixed size. Be sure to inhibit the resize logic by overriding the DoAutoFit method. Also, keep in mind this limitation when designing your own host and your filters.

Creating Your Own Column Filters

Creating new column filters is simple. Derive from DgvBaseColumnFilter and add your visual elements. Override OnFilterExpressionBuilding to provide filter building logic and, using DataView.RowFilter rules, assign a value to the FilterExpression property and a title to the FilterCaption property.

Remember that the filter is applied when the user clicks on the OK button of the host. However, you can obtain an immediate filter application doing a call to the RebuildFilter method of the filter manager.

New Filters

To satisfy some requests, in the 1.1.0.0 update, I've introduced three new filter implementations:

The DgvMonthYearColumnFilter Class

This filter allows the user to select a month and a year. By setting the YearMin and YearMax properties, you can control the shown years range. Month names default to English, but you may provide culture-specific names by once setting the value of the static property MonthCsvList with a comma separated list of month names.

The DgvNumRangeColumnFilter Class

Use this filter to allow the user to specify a range filter on numeric columns.

The DgvDateRangeColumnFilter Class

Use this filter to allow the user to specify a range filter on date columns.

Conclusions

In this article, I've exposed the class architecture and common usage scenarios. This conceptual overview, I hope, will help you understand how it works. For detailed explanations and references, you can see the attached documentation.

Note: To those interested in documenting their works, I've used these materials:

I realize this code is no longer supported but just as an FYI to others that might use this. These classes and components do not clean up after themselves properly. The dispose methods aren't called and events handlers that are registered don't get un-registered causing the garbage collector to not be able to release the memory.

I'm still working on trying to fix my implementation of this code so I don't have any super solution yet...would love to hear from the pro's.

As the title says really, I'm looking for a way to move the cursor to the filter when it opens. I thoughts this would work but it has no effect... The event is fired ok but no focus on the filter popup. Any ideas...?

I developed an additional user control in order to have a filter based on a "distinct" content of the column, and each possible value is shown in a CheckedBoxList (using a ListView control).
This allows the end user to check the boxes next to the values he wishes to filter.

To start, simply download the C# sources of the code shared by Vincenzo Rossi.

Then, in Visual C#, add under FilterPopup/Implementations a user control with the name DvgCheckedBoxListColumnFilter.cs.
On the Design view, simply add a ListView. Name it lstvFilter.
Properties of lstvFilter:
- CheckBoxes = True
- MultiSelect = True
- Scrollable = True
- Sorting = Ascending
- View = Details
And add just one column through the link "Modify columns" below the component properties.

Nice piece of work, on the face of it your code did exactly what I wanted. Problem is I've been all through the help file but can't for the life of me work out how to create a filter from code and how to save a filter so I can re apply it when a user returns to the DGV...?

I had the same problem.
To fix it, look into the sources in the "Implementations" folder.
There, you'll find 5 components. Edit the code of each of them and search for the function "OnFilterExpressionBuilding". Add "[" and "]" where ResultFilterExpression variable is set.

I have placed more than one datagridview in a form.
The problem is, when I run the program, datagridviewPopupFilter works for the first datagridview
but when I wanted to apply popupfilter object for the second datagridview,
it occurs an error which is like:

"object reference not set to an instance of an object"

I couldn't figure out why!
Help please!

Any idea about how to solve the issue, Vincenzo or any guys who had the same problem?

This is an old post, but if anyone is looking for the answer as to how to use DgvFilterPopup on more than one datagridview, you have to create a subform and dock it to a panel on the form you originally wanted the two + datagridviews. So the filter only works on 1 datagridview per form..so you can put your other datagridviews on separate forms then add them back to the main as subforms.

On your load event code you should have some code like this..

Dept is the name of the subform, panel1 is the name of the panel on the Parent form. You may not need all of these settings, but I used them.